We piled in the car and took a little road trip to the tiny north cost peninsula called Samana for some Humpback whale watching. The drive was long considering we were only going 110 miles away, but the average speed you drive here is about 25 miles an hour. There are potholes, motoconchos (motorcycle taxis carrying everything from bread to washing machines to entire families), Guaguas (minivans with 27 people inside! I’m serious, I’ve been in them), tractors, garbage trucks, tiny pick-ups loaded down with scrap metal. The list goes on and on. It’s definitely not as crazy as India or other parts of Southeast Asia, but it keeps you on your toes the whole time. No cruise control and a good podcast here! We stopped for lunch at a roadside cafe. In most parts of the world I’ve found roadside cafe’s have excellent food. It would be like our Truckstops in the US only there are real people cooking up fresh local food from scratch! I had a whole fried fish with roasted eggplant and tomato. Amazing! We walked across the “highway” for a look at the beach before getting back in the car and this is what we saw. Plastic, plastic, plastic... It really brings home the fact that the oceans are the worlds dumping ground. There is no clean water anymore. The only pristine beaches are the ones someone manicures.

So, did we see whales you ask! Yes we did. We weren’t lucky enough to see one breach, or wave at us with a 15ft long flipper, but we saw them come up for air and flick their tales before going back down. I dont have great photos but Andy managed to get some video that I’ll try to post on YouTube. It was so fun being on a boat, out at sea, in decent swell waiting for whales! Almost everyone on the boat took Dramamine (I decided not to) and a few did get seasick. Fortunately I had no problem. I keep thinking someday I will get seasick, but it hasn’t happened yet (knock on wood).

So, this is what we’re here for! Kite surfing. We arrived just over 2 weeks ago, and nearly every afternoon Andy’s been out flying a kite. As you can see from the photo it’s a popular sport here. I’ve been beach combing! So far I’ve got 3 pieces of amber; it’s much more illusive than I originally thought. I’ve also been doing some designing. The architecture, typically a great source of inspiration, is somewhat lacking here. The flora on the other hand... stunning! I think much of what I design here in the DR will be botanical. We are staying at a sort of compound of 4 individually constructed, beautiful houses surrounding a central courtyard with a pool. Andy and I are in a house that borders this amazing freshwater lagoon in a national park. Here’s a panorama of the view off our balcony. Its teaming with water fowl, bull frogs (noisy buggers, but so cool) and I’ve even seen large Herron on multiple occasions! A pina colada, and a sunset on this balcony and I’m a happy camper!

Is this the new world? Cuz it looks just like the old world! Staying in the Zona Calonial in Santo Domingo felt like we were in Spain again. This area of the city is the oldest, much of it having been built while Christopher Columbus’ son Diego was Governor. To the right is a picture of the first church of the Americas. Unlike the churches in Spain, this one was not filled with gold leaf woodwork or other amazing church relics. It was sacked by Drake in the 1560’s and never really recovered.

We visited museums, ate new foods (including Longanitza, a typical Dominican sausage that they deep fry) and enjoyed the pool at our Colonial style studio apartment after hot days exploring the city. We left a day early to meet our friends on the North coast in Cabarete because we were being eaten alive by mosquitoes! Unfortunately colonial style architecture does not include screens or mosquito nets.